


Neighbourly Intent

by epizkage



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Arguing, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, I DONT MAKE THE RULES, Ineffable Neighbours, Multi, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Burn, Smoking, Swearing, They/Them Pronouns for Beelzebub (Good Omens), bee and crowley are siblings who have lesbian parents, bee has depression, bee is an art student, dagon is an epic gamer, its a neighbours au babey!!!!!, lots of swearing, tags will be updated!, terrible halloween costumes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-01 05:21:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 13,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21395329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epizkage/pseuds/epizkage
Summary: “It’ll be okay, kid.” Bee tried to be reassuring despite their voice sounding bored and their face being almost entirely blocked by plants, but Crowley smiled at them anyway.“I know, it’ll just be weird to be so far away.”Bee nodded with a hum, both of them waving goodbye to their mothers, before they set off for their new house--which was fifteen minutes away, in the city.-Moving out for the first time is hard enough, that is, without a six-foot tall idiot with a superiority complex and four years worth of unresolved emotional baggage moving in next door.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), Beelzebub/Gabriel (Good Omens), Hastur/Ligur (Good Omens)
Comments: 37
Kudos: 83





	1. Home Away From Home

“Crowley, what the fuck?” Bee groaned, incredulous, as Crowley handed them another houseplant through the car window. They were sat in the passenger seat, knees near enough at their chest with how far forward the seat had been pushed, their lap and arms already full of plants which they may as well have been juggling in trying to make room for more.

“I have to bring all of them, Bee, they’ll be lonely if I don’t.” Crowley answered sincerely, handing them another, which Bee shoved rather frustratedly into one of the cupholders by the gear stick. 

"Oh, don't worry about me-" Bee huffed sarcastically, taking the tray of mini cacti that Crowley handed them and sliding it onto the dashboard. "-I'll just be a fucking shelf, shall I? It's not like I wanted to say goodbye to our mothers or anything."

"Language, Bee!" Came their mum's joking voice, though from where Bee couldn't quite tell, their peripheral vision on both sides blocked by leaves and greenery. 

"Yeah, Bee,  _ language _ ." Crowley mimicked petulantly, having the  _ gall  _ to try and hand them one last plant through the window only to be stopped by a string of very colourful curse words. Bee managed, after a lot of growling and swearing and heightening claustrophobia, to transplant the innumerable pots into the vacant driver's seat, swinging the car door open with enough vigour to nearly hit Crowley as they made their escape.

The tiny battered car was stuffed to the brim, back seats folded down to make room for two lots of possessions, Crowley and Bee's lives packed up into boxes and stacked in the world's most audacious game of Tetris, scraping the roof and blocking the back window entirely; sure to make Crowley's already terrible driving even worse. 

"Arsehole." Bee scowled, stepping back from the car to join their parents on the pavement, all watching and doing nothing to help as Crowley attempted to strap a way-too-big suitcase to the roof.

"Don't call your brother an arsehole, dear." Their mama said jovially, nudging them in the side.

"He is a bit of one, though." Replied their mum - the other one - coming up to their other side. Bee smirked at the two of them, and busied themselves with rolling a cigarette. 

"Oi!" Crowley called, turning to throw them all a faux-offended pout, ignoring the suitcase for just long enough for it to start sliding off the roof. At the sight of him frantically trying to stop it from either hitting the ground or smashing one of the car windows, Bee choked on a laugh and dropped the filter they'd been holding between their lips, figuring it was karma for laughing as Mama rushed to Crowley's aid. 

"You could help, you know, dear sibling." Crowley yelled, way too loud for a quiet, late September morning, as he tightened the straps on the makeshift roof rack. The neighbours, inevitably, would talk amongst themselves - middle class businessmen asking  _ "oh, aren't you glad that those bastard kids are finally going back to uni?"  _ over a neat and orderly breakfast, wives responding  _ "I never did understand them anyway, Karen mentioned Satanic witchcraft, but really I think they're just hippies." _ Maybe they'd even pop round with fake neighbourly intent, presenting the couple with a rehearsed spiel of  _ "my Sophie left for uni again a few weeks ago, you don't appreciate the alone time until they come back!"  _ and a horrid fake laugh when really all they were trying to do was nosey around and determine whether their neighbours were lesbians or just  _ really good friends. _

Really good friends, who shared a surname, raised children together, and held a garden party last year to renew their vows.

Bee ignored him and sparked up their cigarette. Both mothers shared a glance and rolled their eyes, and Crowley rounded the car to lean against it. 

"Is that everything?" 

Bee nodded through an exhale of smoke, and suddenly their parents had zoned in on them, Crowley being dragged into their huddle while Bee was made to extinguish their cigarette.

"Oh, we'll miss you, horrible children." Their mum laughed, pulling both Bee and Crowley into a tight hug and kissing them both, Bee on the crown of their head and Crowley on the cheek, before passing them off for Mama to do the same.

"We'll miss you both too." Crowley replied, his smile showing clearly all of the anxiety he was trying to keep hidden.

"Don't worry, kiddo-" Bee slapped him on the back as they spoke, a rare moment of genuine and open kindness flashing between them and making their mothers smile from ear to ear. "-Everyone's nice, you know that."

It was Crowley’s first year while Bee was going into their second, and Crowley was to move in with Bee and their friends that they’d met last year. Crowley had met them all before, too, even considering them friends of his own after spending a lot of time at Bee’s flat, though nothing could help keep the anxiety at bay. 

Truth be told, the poor kid looked like he might cry, and so with a sigh Bee decided to take control.

“Come on, we gotta go, I’ve got all the keys and I don’t want Hastur or Dagon tearing into me for making them wait.” 

Crowley looked understandably dejected, but nodded nonetheless, and with one last long family hug the two bundled into the car.

Bee got in first, bringing all of the plants back into their lap to make room for Crowley, who soon after slid into the driver’s seat, hands balled into fists on his thighs as he took a deep breath.

“It’ll be okay, kid.” Bee tried to be reassuring despite their voice sounding bored and their face being almost entirely blocked by plants, but Crowley smiled at them anyway.

“I know, it’ll just be weird to be so far away.”

Bee nodded with a hum, both of them waving goodbye to their mothers, before they set off for their new house-

-which was fifteen minutes away, in the city.   
  
~

Crowley and Bee had managed to unpack the car and near enough move everything in before the first of their housemates even showed up, perfectly chaotic and exactly at the wrong time, as Crowley battled to fit the giant suitcase through the front door while Bee laid on the sofa and did nothing to help.

Her arrival was made known by three things: the sound of Britney Spears’  _ ‘Womanizer’ _ muffled through car windows and getting ominously closer until coming to a head as she pulled up, a crash as the aforementioned car hit the lamp post outside the house, and then a loud, blunt exclamation of “fuck.”

“Ah, Dagon’s here.” 

She ran out of the car, leaving the engine on, door open and music still blasting, and gave Crowley a hard clap on the shoulder as she pushed past him and threw herself into Bee’s lap, only to be promptly deposited onto the floor.

“Aren’t you guys buzzed?” She grinned, red hair messy and falling into her face, partially covered by a black baseball cap that said “women want me, fish fear me” on the front.

“I was until you got here.” Bee fired back playfully, snatching the hat from Dagon’s head and shoving it on their own. It was way too big and the peak fell down over their eyes every time they moved, and they readjusted the size, quite intent on wearing it for the rest of the night, as they got up to help Dagon unpack her car.

Dagon had brought with her far too much of what she didn’t need and far too little of what she did; half of her car being taken up by a giant fish tank (“I’m going back home tomorrow to get them, I hope they don’t miss me too much.”) while the tiny suitcase on her passenger seat apparently held all of her clothes for the year. The music, still Britney Spears, was only turned off once Dagon had unloaded the car completely (as Bee and Crowley had discovered, she had created a playlist of every single Britney Spears song on Spotify), by which point many of the neighbours had already given them some rather distasteful looks from behind their net curtains. 

With the playlist blaring again, now through a speaker upon Dagon’s insistence, the three of them had split up to investigate the house. The outside was irregular and dirty-white, made complete by a wooden door with chipped black paint and a half shiny, half rusted number six nailed to the wall. The inside was no better, old carpets and ragged papering complimenting holes in the plaster and rusty radiator pipes.

None of them had even bothered to look around the place before signing the contracts - an offer of cheap rent and ‘satisfactory’ facilities more than enough to sway them.

Bee had taken to the garden, itching for nicotine, and they extracted a cigarette from behind their ear, scattering loose tobacco through their mess of black hair and making no effort to even acknowledge it, let alone remove it.

The garden was small, narrow and void of greenery completely, except from a pitiful looking tree that looked more like a long twig that had been plunged into a patch of gravel than anything that had ever been remotely alive. The ground was plain concrete, mossy and damp and unappealing in every sense, resembling an alleyway more so than a garden. Bee thought it crunched nicely beneath their thick-soled boots as they walked, and that was enough for them.

They hopped up onto the shoddy brick wall that ran the length of the garden fence, almost barreling straight into the tree-that-once-was, and once they’d found their footing they paused to light their cigarette. 

Crowley would be sure to try and bring the thing back to life, of that they were certain. 

Eyeing the fence, Bee was sure that it would fall down before the year was up, what with the rot and knot-marks and holes between the panels; and they suppressed a laugh at the death-rattle it gave when they kicked it. They spared a glance over into their neighbour’s garden, and then their nosiness overcame them and they draped their arms over the fence entirely, wrinkling their nose a little at how nice next door seemed in comparison. 

It was a wide, open space and the tiles on the ground looked brand new and almost shone under the early afternoon sun. Bee didn’t feel in the least bit bad about dropping cigarette ash all over them. In the middle was a patch of neat green grass, in the far corner a russet-painted shed, and the entire back fence was painted with a sunset-inspired mural.

Inside the house Bee saw a lone girl, busy packing things away into the wall units in the kitchen. Bee found themselves very intrigued, her deep brown skin flawless and shining with a rich gold highlighter that caught the sun every time she moved, and she wore a loose, ruffled white shirt that flowed with her movements and made her look like an angel. 

For someone so seemingly put-together, she’d sure picked a rough neighbourhood to live in.

Bee stopped staring, then, and as they turned to duck down behind the fence to finish their cigarette they met eyes with Crowley, making his way out of the back door to join them.

“Dagon’s setting up her tank," He waved vaguely behind him as he spoke, up on his tiptoes to peer eagerly over the fence. 

"What's next door like?" 

"Nice." Bee replied genuinely with a nod, waiting for Crowley's hum of approval before continuing. "When's your boy moving in?" 

Crowley choked, and Bee snickered when his face flushed almost as red as his hair.

He had started dating a boy named Aziraphale, though Crowley would only ever call him Ezra, Zira, or  _ Angel _ , over the summer, having met online and hit it off in a fresher's group chat for their university. 

_ "Weird name."  _ Bee had commented, and then had immediately taken it back upon remembering that their legal name had very nearly been  _ Beelzebub _ .

The two had met up a few times, and soon become an official item. Bee could still vividly remember the absolute joy on Crowley's face when he'd found out that, arguably through some sort of divine intervention, Zira would be living just next door when term time started.

Who else he was living with, however, Bee and Crowley hadn't the faintest. All Zira had said was that there were four of them, two second years and two first years, and all of them had met through family friends, university societies and extra curricular youth groups. Nerds.

"Uh, h-he-" Crowley cleared his throat, removing his sunglasses as if it'd help him think better, brown eyes so light they almost shone yellow darting this way and that but never meeting Bee's own. "-He should be here tomorrow, or the day after."

Bee smirked at him, quirking an eyebrow. 

"You'll have to introduce us.”

Crowley very quickly brushed it off with an awkward nod.

“What do you think the rest of ‘em will be like?”

Bee finished their cigarette and stubbed out the end on the wall, little ashy embers flying back at them as they flicked the filter in the general direction of the drain by the back door.

_ ‘Get something to put your dock ends in-’  _ Bee reminded themselves as they followed Crowley back through to the living room.  _ ‘-Asshole. Think of the planet.’ _

“Insufferable, probably.” Bee shrugged, leaning back against the sofa and crossing one leg over their knee, their foot beginning to twitch and shake out of habit. They decided not to mention the girl they’d seen in the kitchen, knowing full well that Crowley would mislay the information to Dagon, who in turn would mislay it to Hastur, over-exaggerated and not at all true stories of Bee and the mystery girl somehow being an item forming from nothing more than boredom and a need for drama.

“Yeah, probably.” Crowley’s reply was half-hearted, paying no real attention as he instead stared down at his phone.

“Zira likes them, though, so I’m sure they’re nice enough.”

Bee made no effort to reply, but if they had, it would’ve been cut off. First by a crash, followed immediately by the second customary exclamation of “fuck” of the day. 

It was beginning to feel like home already.


	2. A Right Old Faff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> first update! thank you so much to everyone who read and left kudos/feedback on the first chapter, i'm so glad you enjoyed it!! uni work is kicking my ass so there will be no chapter sketches this week or maybe even for the foreseeable future, but i'm hoping at least to keep to a regular monday update schedule! thank you so much again :)

The following day Bee woke up at almost two in the afternoon, a sweaty, angry mess disguised as a person trying to disappear into their duvet. They wrinkled their nose and draped an arm over their eyes in annoyance at the sunlight pouring in through a crack in the curtains, and with their other arm fumbled blindly on their bedside table for the glass of water they’d left there last night.

It had nearly been dark by the time Hastur bothered to show up the night before, no one having heard from him all day until ten minutes before he appeared in a manner just as chaotic as Dagon. His arrival was marked first by the loud, piercing scream of car breaks that were not well looked after, his boyfriend Ligur having carted him and his belongings around in his old car that was steadily beginning to resemble a skip on wheels. 

Next had come the slam of two car doors, way too loud for the time of night, and then, a second later, Hastur started banging on the front window (the one facing right into Bee’s bedroom) and shouting like a madman.

“Guess who’s home!”

Dagon had suggested they pretend they weren’t in and leave him screaming out on the street, but Crowley had countered that the last thing they needed on their first day in their new home was one of the neighbours calling the police, so they let him in. 

He had bundled in, looking rather more dishevelled than usual, arms full of poorly-packed bags and suitcases as Ligur tailed after him, he too looking dishevelled and carrying a stack of boxes. 

Hastur hadn’t even bothered to unpack anything, simply shoving it all in his room before coming back into the living room, collapsing down on the sofa with his legs in Ligur’s lap, and bringing a bottle of  _ something _ out of the inside of his coat.

And thus, the night began.

They’d ordered food and drank until the early hours, playing video games and smoking until they were sufficiently buzzed before the lot of them retreated to their rooms and promptly passed out.

Bee hadn’t had much, in fact they were pretty much sober when they fell asleep, but they’d slept like a rock and had downed the entire glass of lukewarm water in a feeble attempt to even begin to feel alive again.

“God-” Bee’s voice rumbled low in their throat. “-Shit.”

They sat up, and then almost immediately toppled over onto their front, face down against the mattress.

The house was silent save for the occasional rustle or creaky floorboard - Crowley would likely be the only other person awake. Bee twisted awkwardly to grab their phone, trying to move as little as possible, but a muscle in their hip seized up and they yelled out in pain, falling limp against the duvet with a frown and a huff. 

Crowley was wandering about now, Bee could hear him, his weird uneasy gait making the floorboards creak rhythmically, coming down the stairs and making a right old racket as he did.

His footsteps came to a halt outside their bedroom door, and then-

“Bee!”

“Fuck off, I’m asleep.” Bee replied, very much awake. 

“Zira’s moving in today!” Crowley sounded panicked, as usual, and Bee couldn’t tell whether they wanted to get out of bed and help him out or burrow further in. 

Crowley, however, made that decision for them, pounding a fist against the door and calling out to them again.

“Bee!”

With a growl that made them sound quite like a petulant child, Bee wrapped themselves up in a blanket, rolled out of bed, and padded to the door to open it. 

"What should I do?" Crowley practically yelled at them, eyes wide and cheeks flushed as he thrust his phone at them and almost hit them in the chest. Bee scowled at him but looked at it anyway, scrunching their nose up at the sight of the display name 'Angel' beside the message which simply read: 'I'll be on my way in a few hours, love!'

"Chill out, perhaps?" They countered, raising their eyebrows as they leaned against the doorframe. 

"But Bee!" 

"I know, dickhead-" Their expression softened, and they nudged his shoulder playfully as they walked past him and into the living room. "-Make me some toast, and then we'll game plan."

~ 

Two hours later, Bee watched with no discretion from between their blinds as Crowley faffed around outside, helping Zira and his parents move things out of the van and into the house. 

Bee had managed to calm their brother’s nerves somewhat, mostly telling him to stop being an idiot while he worked himself up into a frenzy over the idea of his new boyfriend moving in next door, but eventually he had settled down with the ultimatum that he would either help them unpack or go round afterwards to help them settle in.

Dagon, Hastur and Ligur had by then surfaced too, and after Ligur’s departure under the guise of "business" the two left had made themselves comfortable in Bee’s room, hovering behind them to peer out the window as well.

“Is he cute?” Dagon questioned, trying to get a good look at Aziraphale and nearly pushing Bee off their chair in the process.

“He's my brother’s boyfriend, Dagon.” Bee answered bluntly, though made no move to even look at her, still too invested in watching Crowley try his best not to make a fool of himself. 

“And?”

Bee shrugged, finding that they couldn’t really argue with that, and barely suppressed a snort of laughter when they watched Crowley try to pick up a particularly heavy looking box only to almost drop it on his foot.

“He seems nice enough-” Hastur said, indifferent and obviously judgemental of the strangers moving in next door. “-Doubt we’ll have any bother with ‘em.”

The girl from yesterday came out of the house to help, and Bee watched, intrigued. She quickly introduced herself to Crowley and the two shared a smile, but then Crowley spun and gestured to the house and, by extension, to Bee, Dagon and Hastur all crowded round the window.

Crowley’s face fell and his eyes widened, mortified, but the girl laughed and waved, and Bee, Dagon and Hastur all shared a look of surprise between them before each flashed a smile and waved back.

When Crowley scrambled back through the front door half an hour later, bright red, sweaty and looking as though he was about to simultaneously laugh, cry, scream and burst into flames, Bee shot him a very terse and pitying glance.

"Went well, I take it?"

“I met his parents.” Crowley answered immediately with a frown. “They called me  _ Anthony _ , and they shook my hand, both of ‘em.”

Crowley dropped his head into his hands, and Bee rolled their eyes at him.

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic.”

Dagon and Hastur, who had disappeared into the living room to watch  _ The Chase  _ when they grew bored of watching the free entertainment outside, were summoned by the fuss and poked their heads around the door, peering at the two with amusement

“The last two are moving in today, too-” Crowley continued, allowing himself to be herded back through to the living room. “-Zira said they were all planning on coming round later to introduce themselves.”

Bee, Dagon and Hastur all groaned collectively at that, and Crowley struggled to suppress a laugh as Bee slumped down beside him on the sofa and regarded him with a frown.

“Please tell me you told him not to bother.”

Crowley looked sheepish, running an anxious hand through his hair.

“They’ll be round after six.” 


	3. Chaos, Carnage and Catastrophe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> thank you again to those who are still reading, leaving comments, kudos etc, you make my heart happy! i'm still aiming for a regular monday upload schedule, but with my uni deadlines coming up there may be a two week break between this chapter and the next - i'm sorry in advance!!
> 
> everything kicks off in this one boys!!! hope you enjoy <3

Six came and went, and by half past Bee had almost forgotten what they were in for, and had it not been for the anxiety rolling off of Crowley in waves they would've forgotten altogether. While Hastur could very clearly not give less of a shit, Dagon seemed intrigued, Bee just wanted it over with, and Crowley seemed about ready to burst into flames. 

At the end of the current episode of  _ ‘Come Dine With Me’,  _ just as the contestant whose dinner party ended in a physical altercation announced the winner by throwing the silver tray of twenties at them, Crowley pushed himself up from the sofa urgently and blocked the TV entirely.

Bee didn’t remember their brother being so enthusiastic about daytime television, but as he spun around and began brandishing his phone like a weapon Bee realised that it was quite possible Crowley hadn’t been paying attention to the TV at all.

“They’re coming round.” He gave a terse laugh, suddenly going rather pale.

“Oh, Jesus Christ.” Bee huffed, sinking back into their seat and hoping for their hoodie to suffocate them. “Can’t you just deal with it?”

“It’ll be fun!” Dagon supplied unhelpfully.

“It’ll be  _ something. _ ” Hastur retorted, grinning despite the gruff boredom in his voice.

“How about-” Bee went to reply but was interrupted mid-sentence by a loud, rapid knock at the door. All four heads snapped to look in the same direction, before snapping back and regarding one another, no two expressions the same.

Bee grimaced, sighing audibly and rolling their eyes, Dagon snorted, trying in vain to keep her face neutral, Hastur leaned forward, smirking, elbows on his knees, and Crowley, well, Crowley looked absolutely petrified.

“Fuck!”

He shot over to the door to peer through the peephole, and after a moment withdrew with an exaggerated, relieved sigh. Bee watched in horror as he flung the door open, fully expecting to be invaded by strangers only to see Zira, alone, barrel forwards through the door and into Crowley’s arms.

“Hi, love!” Zira grinned, voice muffled by Crowley’s shoulder, just loud enough for Bee and the others to hear.

Despite themself Bee allowed their expression to soften, but as they exchanged teasing glances with Dagon and Hastur they missed completely how Crowley’s demeanour changed in an instant. As he spared a look over Zira’s shoulder he did a double take, withdrawing from the hug immediately and taking on an air of absolute disgust.

“Is it safe to come to the door yet?” Bee teased, having heard the new silence and assumed that Crowley and Zira wanted their privacy, rousing a laugh from Dagon and Hastur. 

“I fucking wouldn’t.” Crowley replied without missing a beat, voice harsh, and Bee could only just see from their spot on the sofa how Crowley hadn’t moved a muscle, eyes still trained on  _ something. _

At the sound of his voice they could tell that something was up, and eager for drama the three of them scrambled up from the sofas and crowded out into the doorway. What with Zira’s obvious discomfort and Crowley’s apparent offense, Bee, Dagon and Hastur had almost expected to find a flaming bag of dog shit waiting for them on the doorstep.

Standing there, however, were the neighbours - all three of them.

The girl Bee had seen earlier stood on the far left, looking friendly as ever with a wide, beaming smile. On the right stood another girl, one who Bee hadn’t seen before but who looked awfully familiar, taller and more imposing but smiling all the same, brown hair styled into a coiled updo.

“These are my housemates-” Zira began, voice a little apprehensive now as he sensed the tension that could not yet be placed, gesturing first to the girl on the left, and then the right. “-Uriel, Michael,”

But Bee wasn’t listening, through the haze of awkward introductions all they could do was stare, incredulous, at the figure in the middle. 

A boy, tall and broad-shouldered with a chiselled jaw and immaculate backswept hair, wearing a lavender turtleneck and grey jogging bottoms.

“-And Gabriel.”

He looked equally as shocked, wide-eyed and tense as his gaze flicked from Bee to Crowley and then back again, opening his mouth only to close it again when he drew a blank of what to say.

“Oh my fucking God.” Bee beat him to it, pushing down the instinctual urge to punch him square across the face.

“Gabriel fucking Archer.”

“Bee.” He nodded after a beat of silence, first to them, and then to Crowley, voice filled with hesitant civility. “Anthony.”

The silence that came next was strained and awkward now that everyone else had quietened down, eager to learn the ins and outs of the newly revealed rivalry, and Crowley curled his lip up in distaste.

“Don’t call me that.”

Bee knew him, loath as they were to admit it; they’d been to school together, had been the absolute best of friends, once. They had history with him, but Crowley had only heard the horror stories, and so while Crowley disliked him out of principle, Bee fucking  _ despised _ him.

“Nice to see you guys too.” Gabriel huffed, addressing Crowley with sarcasm despite his gaze remaining fixed on Bee, who had their fists clenched tight by their sides. 

“What is it? Nearly four years, and not even so much as a ‘hello’?”

“What exactly is going on here?” The girl introduced as Michael butted in, the girl who Bee now recognised must’ve been Gabriel’s sister; the same Michael they’d known when they were tiny, the same Michael they hadn’t seen in years.

While she sounded rather formidable indeed, Gabriel’s sarcasm had riled Bee up so much that they ignored her entirely.

“As if you fucking deserve it.” They spat, eyeing him up and down as they spoke, feeling Dagon and Hastur positively vibrating with excitement at the prospect of a fight.

“You know each other, then?” Dagon antagonised, and had it been anyone else in the firing line Bee would’ve found it funny, but four years without closure had left them unable to feel anything but pure, unbridled rage.

“You seriously expect a warm welcome from us? After everything?”

"What's the problem?" Zira chimed in, clutching Crowley's hand tightly.

"Nothing, Zira, we just haven't seen each other in a long time." Gabriel replied smoothly before anyone could speak up, and his obvious attempt at damage control was what finally tipped Bee over the edge.

"I don't think abandoning your friends, bullying them and then moving half way across the fucking country without even saying 'goodbye' counts as nothing, Gabriel." They hissed, and though he towered over them, a full head taller now at least, Bee stepped forward to shove him hard against the chest, sending him back a few steps.

"Touch my brother again, I swear to God-" Michael swooped in instantly, looming over Bee with her shoulders squared in an attempt to look threatening, but Bee was having none of it. 

"If your brother wasn't such a tosser, I wouldn't have to."

"Bee, look-" Gabriel started, both hands held up in front of him, and while he looked almost genuinely upset, Bee was adamant that he was just saving face.

"Shut up, prick." They scowled, ignoring the hushed snickering coming from Hastur and Dagon. 

"We need to talk about this eventually!"

"I have nothing to say to you." They looked between Uriel and Zira, and then begrudgingly at Michael, ignoring Gabriel entirely. 

"You lot seem alright, but I won't be having anything to do with  _ him." _

When they were met with yet more deafening silence, they flicked Gabriel the middle finger and turned on their heel, addressing Zira with a nod.

"Nice to finally meet you, Zira, don't be a stranger."

And with that, they stalked off into their room and slammed the door, locking it behind them.


	4. 666 Kingwood Street

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i'm back!! thank you all so much for your lovely comments and for your patience - all but one deadline has passed and i got all my work done on time, so yay me! hopefully i'll be back to a regular weekly upload schedule from now on <3
> 
> hope you enjoy!

It had been a week since the doorstep disaster, and things, surprisingly, had been pretty quiet.

Or at least as quiet as things could get in a house that, as Bee had discovered one day upon returning home from university, had recently had its number tagged with an extra six on either side of the original.

“Are we getting in the Halloween spirit early, or are we becoming Satanists?” They had questioned with a rare, good-natured smirk, tracking muddy footprints through to the living room, where they sat down on the sofa beside Hastur to untie their boot laces.

“Both.” Dagon snorted from where she sat cross legged on the floor in front of the TV, which was currently stuck on static, untangling the bundle of wires that sat in her lap. “We thought it was your man from next door trying to make a statement, but turns out it was just Ligur.”

“Who the Hell is ‘ _ my man’ _ supposed to be?” Bee yelled, looking absolutely disgusted. They knew full well that Dagon was referring to Gabriel, and just the notion of it made them bristle, all traces of their good mood gone in a heartbeat. Beside them Hastur slapped a hand over his mouth to hide his laughter, and Bee gave him a very dirty look.

“The hot American one.” Dagon confirmed with a cocky smile, eyes bright and challenging. 

“Fuck off.” Bee scowled, kicking one foot and sending their boot flying off in Dagon’s direction. She caught it with a grin, and Bee’s frown deepened.

“I hate him.” 

“We know.” Dagon said, rolling her eyes affectionately as she threw Bee’s boot back at them, narrowly missing their head and sending mud splattering up the off-white wallpaper.

“You still haven’t told us  _ why _ , though.”

She’d since managed to get the wires untangled, and was now busying herself trying to plug the Gamecube into the back of the TV. With her back turned Bee glared at her petulantly, brows furrowed, and Hastur actually burst out laughing then, leaning away over the arm of the sofa as if to pretend he wasn’t involved at all. 

“He’s a prick.” Bee huffed, leaning back against the cushions with their arms folded tight across their chest, leg shaking irritably. It was all they could manage to say, just the thought of him living  _ next door _ making their chest feel fit to burst with absolute rage. 

“How do you even know him?” Hastur asked, unflinching as Bee turned to face him with such speed they could’ve given themselves whiplash. They exhaled sharply, looking seconds away from either flipping the coffee table or storming out for a cigarette, but after a moment’s consideration did neither, only shut their eyes and sighed.

“We used to be mates.” They answered simply, doing their best to quell the inferno that raged within them, determined not to let him get under their skin,  _ again _ .

“You two?” Dagon blurted, interest piqued once more. She abandoned the wires and turned on her knees, facing Bee with her head tilted to one side.

“How the Hell did that happen? He’s-” She continued, looking off to the side with her face screwed up as she tried to find the word she was looking for.

“A tit?” Bee supplied, one eyebrow raised, and Dagon paused for a moment before she nodded in agreement.

Silence stretched out between them for a moment and quickly grew uncomfortable, and Bee saw fit to break it by launching into another tirade, plunging into a pit of raw memories they hadn’t cared to uncover in years.

“Decent mates, we were, ‘till he fucked off down south without a word to anyone.”

“Sounds like a knob.” Dagon said, though her attention was elsewhere as she turned once again back to the TV, fiddling with the sockets and wires and making much more noise than necessary.

“Got up the arses of the popular kids and thought he was God’s gift.” Bee continued, though it was becoming very obvious to all involved that they didn’t want to think about it anymore, nor did Dagon want to hear about it.

Hastur had, by that point, stopped listening entirely.

“His sister’s pretty, though.” Dagon shrugged, and at that point the tension in the room became so palpable that Hastur got up and left, muttering about needing to feed the reptiles, or  _ something _ .

“You what?” Bee choked, eyes wide, mouth agape as they leaned forward as if to address her more directly. 

“Are you serious?”

“Think she’d be interested?” Dagon ignored Bee’s question entirely for favour of her own antics, and with a glance over her shoulder found that Bee looked quite angry indeed.

“She threatened me!” They shouted, voice pitchy as they waved their hands about wildly. Bee was unsure why they were so enraged by the idea of Dagon  _ fraternising _ with Gabriel’s sister, as deep down they knew that it wouldn’t invalidate Gabriel’s status as Dickhead Of The Decade due to Michael’s complete lack of involvement, but all the same were feeling way too many things to bother questioning it.

“In fairness, Bee-” Dagon did eventually turn around again, then, if only because she knew that what she was about to say would not go down well at all. “-You  _ did _ smack her brother.”

Bee fell silent-

“If someone smacked Crowley, you’d be the first to go at 'em, wouldn’t you?”

\- and they remained silent.

They knew that she was right, that had they not gotten physical with Gabriel, Michael wouldn’t have felt the need to intervene, but still their anger fuelled them, blinded them.

“See?” Dagon knew too that she was right, that Bee couldn’t really argue, and gave an attempt at a comforting smile despite Bee glowering at her from behind their fringe.

With a shrug, she pulled the Gamecube into her lap, unplugging a few of the cables only to then plug them back in, missing the scandalised look that twisted Bee’s face.

“But-” Bee started in attempt to reply only for Dagon to finally get the console plugged in correctly and, consequently, send the TV bursting to life, interrupting them. The screen flickered and up came the very poorly animated opening sequence to what looked to be a very old game, accompanied by the whirring of the disc in the Gamecube and ear-splitting, early 2000’s arcade jazz music. The volume had been turned up so high, whether intentionally or not Bee didn’t care to find out, that it sounded tinny and muffled from the speakers struggling to cope.

Bee flinched so violently they almost fell off of the sofa.

_ ‘TOP ANGLER-’ _

“Dagon, what the fuck-” They shouted over the blaring music, barely able to hear their own voice.

“Finally!”

_ ‘PLEASE SELECT MODE.’ _

“Dagon!” They shouted again, louder this time. “Fucking turn it down!” 

Dagon, however, was having none of it.

“I bloody love this game!”

Dagon’s attention was now solely on the TV, conversation with Bee all but forgotten as she leaned in over her controller, waiting for the character on screen to cast the line into just the right area of the poorly rendered polygonal water.

For a second, Bee saw  _ red. _

“Dagon!”

When she didn’t respond, Bee felt their anger just about get the better of them. They yelled out in frustration and pushed themselves to their feet, but despite it all knew that none of this was Dagon’s fault. 

If anything, it was entirely their  _ own _ . 

With all the self control they could muster, Bee walked quietly out of the living room and into their bedroom, where they locked the door, collapsed face down onto the bed, and screamed into a pillow until their throat hurt.

So much for not letting him get under their skin.


	5. Devil's Advocate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> back on the regular upload schedule finally! gabriel will be showing up a lot more from now on, and its halloween babey!!!!! thank you again for all your wonderful comments and feedback, im so grateful to each and every one of you <3

“My dear, I’m not sure I should come tonight-”

“Yes you should! I-If you want to, I mean.”

“I’d love to!” Aziraphale laughed at Crowley’s eagerness, but his expression soon fell. “It’s just, what about the others?”

With a sigh Crowley took Zira’s hands in his own, bringing them up to his lips to kiss the knuckles before returning them to his lap, thumb brushing the gold ring Zira wore on his pinky finger.

“Uriel and Michael are welcome-” He started, watching Zira’s face fall further at the notion of excluding someone so blatantly, even if that someone was Gabriel. “-But not him, you know?"

Zira shrugged, looking rather deflated indeed.

“It’s such a shame-” He started, comforted by the kisses Crowley dusted upon his hands. “-I suppose I knew he was a bit full of himself, but not like  _ that.” _

Crowley worried his lip between his teeth, eyes downcast for a moment as he remembered just how much Bee had changed, how upset they’d been when Gabriel left. 

“He’s very much like  _ that.” _

Zira gave a sigh of his own, then, realising that the topic was going nowhere pleasant. After a beat he forced his concerns to the back of his mind and raised one hand, swiping a lock of Crowley’s hair back into place.

“Enough of that, love.” He started, leaning in to meet Crowley in the middle for a kiss. “What are you wearing tonight?”

Crowley snorted at the mention of his costume, and nudged Zira’s shoulder playfully.

“You’ll have to wait and see.”

~

Bee  _ loved _ Halloween.

The sweets, the costumes, the parties, the excuse to drink themselves into oblivion and try to speak to ghosts - they loved every second of it.

And so, when they wandered into the living room fifteen minutes before their party was due to kick off, only to find that the costume Crowley had been bragging about for days was nothing more than a plain white t-shirt with the word “anxiety” scrawled across it in sharpie, they found their festive spirits dampened somewhat.

“Am I the only one in this house who cares about Halloween?” They grumbled, emptying four boxes of mini Smarties into their mouth in rapid succession and scanning the room with a frown.

Hastur, with his face painted blue and a pair of crudely made ears pinned into his hair, stared back blankly.

“What are you supposed to be?” 

Hastur looked at Bee as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, mouth agape, before calling for Ligur who quickly joined them from the kitchen, the only indicator of his own costume being a paper chef’s hat sitting wonky atop his head.

Hastur gestured between Ligur and himself, as if it suddenly made sense now that the two were together, but upon realising that Bee was now only more confused he gave them a very pointed glare.

“We're clearly Remy an' Linguini-" He started, and even as they clocked it Bee was still lost - what kind of couple's costume idea was that? 

"-what're  _ you _ s'posed to be?”

Bee, on the other hand, had followed the age old custom of picking the perfect Halloween costume only to improve it tenfold by adding 'sexy' to the title. They answered with vigour, defensive of the costume they’d positively slaved over.

“I’m a sexy demon, you bastard.”

Bee, despite their insecurities, was always one to jump at the chance to show off, and the pull of the red leather shorts they kept hidden at the bottom of their wardrobe was simply far too much to pass up. 

They adjusted the little horns on their head almost awkwardly, feeling incredibly overdressed for the briefest of moments up until Dagon arrived in what was easily the most detailed and accurate Waluigi costume any of them had ever seen.

"You look fit." She said with a nod to Bee as she entered, pre-rolled joint tucked between her ear and the ridge of her purple cap. 

"Thanks-" 

"I meant him, obviously." She teased, gesturing over her shoulder to Hastur, who had since begun tugging on Ligur's hair in an obvious attempt at pre-marital rat jaegering. 

"Bitch." Bee muttered under their breath, though as hard as they tried they were unable to keep their face neutral, and their frown broke out into a smirk.

Zira turned up not too long after, right on time at eight-thirty on the dot, by which point Bee and Hastur had already begun pouring a horrid concoction of alcohol into a mixing bowl on the coffee table. He'd come as a pumpkin,  _ of course _ he had, wearing an orange knitted sweater with the typical grinning face emblazoned across the front. 

Adorable. 

"Is it not a little early to be drinking?" He'd asked as he was lead through to the living room, quiet enough for only Crowley to hear now that Dagon had connected her Spotify to the massive speaker system they'd set up on the TV stand, sending  _ The Monster Mash _ blaring through the house at a much higher volume than necessary.

"It's never too early in this house-" Crowley replied, grimacing as he watched Bee pour cheap blue-bottle cider into the mix, while Hastur emptied in an orange flavoured Capri-Sun.

"-But I draw the line at  _ that. _ "

~

With an open door policy people filtered in  _ fast,  _ spilling out into both the front and back gardens as the house rapidly neared capacity. Friends, friends of friends and acquaintances from each of their respective courses had been invited initially, but inevitably more people had turned up, drawn in by the potential of free booze and decent drugs, and when strangers began to come and try their luck Hastur took to manning the door.

Most were there for pre-drinks, for which Bee was actually quite thankful, already feeling claustrophobic as they shoved their way through the crowds of people much taller than them to get to the garden for a cigarette. They were sure that, when the majority fucked off to the plethora of Halloween-themed club nights throughout the town centre, they’d be able to relax a little, no longer needing to worry about strangers stealing their toaster or throwing up under the stairs.

They were surprised to find Dagon at the end of the garden smoking a joint, surprised even more so to find her talking to Uriel, of all people. They hadn’t even noticed her arrive. Bee wandered over with purpose, pulling a cigarette from the pack with their teeth and thanking all and any higher powers that they’d managed to pull it off and not fuck it up as they came to a stop in front of them. 

“Hi!” Dagon grinned, almost shouting to be heard over the muffled music from indoors as she gestured between Uriel and Bee, introducing them as though they’d never seen each other before. 

“Uriel, Bee. Bee, Uriel.”

“We’ve met, Dag.” Bee snorted, feeling surprisingly at ease as they gave a nod in Uriel’s direction, fumbling with their lighter. They tried once, twice, five times to get it lit, but each time the flint got caught and in the end they gave up with a groan, staring at the two with resignation. 

“Either of you got a light?”

“Cherry it.” Dagon said as she tipped her head back to gesture Bee closer. They leaned in to touch the tip of their cigarette to the cherry of Dagon’s spliff, inhaling for a second to ensure it caught before both pulled away.

“Thanks.” They gave Dagon a small smile, one reserved only for her, before they turned to Uriel to address her directly. 

“I’m surprised you’re here, I’m sure you-know-who had a lot to say about it.”

“Oh, it’s not my beef.” Uriel shrugged, adjusting her sparkly halo headband. “I was just saying to Dagon, its weird that you two have been at the same university for a year now and never ran into each other.”

“Thank fuck we never did.” Bee huffed, feeling frustrated already at just the mention of him. “I’d have been kicked off campus by now.”

“What’s he study?” Dagon asked, holding out the last half of her joint in a silent offer, which Uriel declined with a shake of her head. Bee took it in exchange for the last half of their cigarette as Uriel replied.

“Business and accounting.” She rolled her eyes teasingly, taking a sip from her can of vodka-coke. “I’m on philosophy and theology with Michael, what about you guys?”

“Fine arts.” Bee answered simply, a little lost in thought as they tried to recall where the business blocks were on campus - surely, that must be why they had never run into him until now. They missed Dagon’s reply but assumed it was given as the two fell back into easy conversation, and they were content to fade into the background for a few minutes until a sudden yell from behind brought them back into focus with a jolt.

“Bee!”

They spun around and, lo and behold there stood Gabriel, leaning over the fence with a scowl, his hair away from its usual ridiculous back-sweep so that it fell down into his face.

Bee thought it made him look slightly less of a knobhead, and that opinion would’ve remained had he not opened his mouth.

“Speak of the fucking devil-” They hissed under their breath, glaring daggers at him which he seemed more than happy to reciprocate. 

“Can you, for once in your life, be considerate?” He complained.

By that point a few people had already started to leave to make their way into town, but those left in the garden were watching eagerly as Bee inhaled sharply, finished their joint, and threw the end off into the darkness.

“If you, for once in your life, fuck off out of my business.” 

“Turn the music down.” Gabriel snapped, and Bee faked being taken aback for just a moment to calculate their next move. They remained still, eyebrows raised as they met his gaze only to lean off to the side with a hand by their mouth as if they intended to shout.

“Turn it down.” They spoke, voice intentionally quiet and monotonous, and when inevitably nobody responded they turned to Gabriel with an exaggerated shrug. He looked absolutely infuriated, and Bee gave a smug smile as they heard hushed laughter begin to erupt from behind them.

With a glance over their shoulder they saw that Uriel had since disappeared, and Dagon was now stood trying to keep her composure alongside Az and Luci, two of Bee’s friends from their course. They shot them a thumbs up, sole aim to enrage Gabriel further, and received three in response.

“Oh, fuck you.” Gabriel groaned, and as he disappeared back behind the fence with a roll of his eyes Bee almost wished that he’d taken the bait and argued with them some more. Nonetheless they relented, determined to have a good night, and turned to face the eyes that had since begun to burn into their back.

Taking another cigarette from the pack, though not risking using their teeth this time around for fear of dropping it, they stalked back to Dagon, Az and Luci and accepted the lighter that was held out to them. After a deep inhale, they yelled out through a cloud of smoke, voice loud enough to be heard clearly above everything else.

“As you were, lads!”


	6. Broken Banks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i hope you all had a wonderful holiday season! sorry again for the two week gap, those may become more frequent as i move back to my uni house and start working again, but thank you again to everyone whos still reading and enjoying - gabe is gonna be a lot more frequent in the story now! hope you enjoy <3

Bee shuddered and raised their shoulders, curled in on themselves against the harsh chill that buffeted them and the rain that seemed to be falling horizontally, still managing to hit them despite them being stood under the eaves of the art block reception building. Since the party their mood had seen a rapid decline, the near constant rain and the itch of unresolved tensions with  _ him _ sending them into an early spiral of seasonal lows.

They’d agreed to meet Dagon there at four, but knowing she’d be late had left the studios at quarter past, and fifteen minutes later Bee was still alone, wet, and frozen to the bone.

With a frown they dug the toe of their boot into the muddy gravel beneath their feet, the harsh, hot inhale of their cigarette burning against the cold. 

Beside them stood their friend, Levi, a skinny, green-haired boy who could talk for days, though he remained as silent as his company as he too indulged in a cigarette, though his smelled of something slightly different to tobacco.

His silence, however, didn’t last long.

“Bloody cold, innit?”

Bee considered their options for a moment, weighing up whether to reply and have him inevitably talk their ear off until Dagon arrived, or ignore him, have him get offended and then, inevitably, talk their ear off until Dagon arrived.

Seeing no way out Bee shrugged, and without even turning to look at him gave a very noncommittal “yeah, innit” in reply.

The rain seemed to fall harder as Levi opened up into a tirade, ranting incessantly about everyone else’s business but his own.

“Luci’s work is so good-”

Bee inhaled sharply, recalling the installation Luci had created for his final project - a room covered on all surfaces with framed mirrors. He called it an investigation into vanity, but everyone else just called it an effigy to narcissism. 

“It is.” They lied.

“He’s so far ahead, I’m so jealous-”

Bee rolled their eyes, flicking the end of their cigarette into the gravel and immediately setting about rolling another. “Do your fucking work, then.”

“He’s always going on about how good his grades are, I just wish he’d fuck off.”

“Wish  _ you’d _ fuck off-” 

Levi turned sharply to look at them, scandalised, and Bee choked on a laugh when they realised they’d said it out loud.

"And here I was, about to compliment your work too-" Levi began, though was interrupted by Dagon finally rounding the corner, soaked through and shouting at the top of her lungs to get their attention.

Bee had never been more glad to see her, in all of her sodden, lunchbox-wielding glory.

She approached excitedly, and when Levi realised that the attention was no longer on him he skulked off back inside to bother someone else.

"Look!" Dagon grinned, all sharp teeth and blue-banded braces as she thrust the lunchbox into Bee's arms without them even having to ask about it. They peered inside with caution, cigarette between their lips, and when all they could see inside was murky, dirty water, they handed it back with their caution doubled.

"Juice cleanse?" They joked, regarding her carefully.

Dagon scowled down at the box, shook it slightly, and then tore the lid off and presented it to Bee once again.

Brown water splashed out over her hands and dripped down into the puddles at her feet. Inside the box a fat, grey fish swam in circles.

Bee stared at the fish, and the fish stared back.

"I honestly don't know what to say to that." They managed finally.

"River's flooded to fuck, he was on the path, that’s why I was so late." 

Bee, for a moment, felt as though they should've guessed as such. It had been raining nonstop for days, and the main river through the city was flooding into the streets. Roads were closed, the riverside accommodation buildings and houses were evacuated, and, apparently, innocent fish were being made homeless. 

"Is it coming home with us, then?" Bee questioned, one eyebrow raised as they finished their second cigarette and very nearly gave in to the urge to roll a third and take up chain-smoking. 

“Well, I can’t just leave him, can I?”

Realising that they really couldn’t argue with that, Bee shrugged, and Dagon broke out into a grin which, had Bee not felt so bloody awful, they would’ve probably returned. Instead, all they could muster was a faint smile-turned frown and a groan of discomfort as they stepped out into the deluge. 

Dagon trailed behind as they walked, talking animatedly about her day while Bee stomped a few paces ahead. They walked up to the bridge by their house and through the floodwater beneath it, and Bee scowled as the water seeped in through the lining of their boots and soaked their socks.

“Doesn’t all this rain get you down?” They asked quietly when conversation ceased, shuffling through through the little rivers that ran down the gutters, illuminated orange by the streetlights and silver by car headlights. 

Dagon thought for a moment before jogging to catch up with Bee, head cocked as she stared down at them despite knowing full well they wouldn’t look back. 

“Not really.” She answered simply, not even bothering to ask the same. She knew better than most how the seasons affected Bee, that they wouldn't have asked had they not been in the midst of it. 

"I kinda like it." She continued, wiggling the fish-box in front of Bee's face and smirking when they tried to bat her away, the tiniest hint of a smile twitching at their lips.. 

"Not the flooding, obviously, but the rain, the smell before a storm is the best." 

Bee hummed, if only just to let Dagon know they were still paying attention as they trekked through the consequence of yet another broken riverbank, water flooding in this time through the tops of their boots.

"What's that word?” Dagon was off on a tangent now, and Bee was glad for it - content to listen without the need to reply. They turned to look at her properly for the first time since they left campus, brows furrowed, and Dagon pushed, insistent on getting at least one word out of them.

“You know the word! I don’t remember it - means that stormy smell.”

With a pensive frown Bee kicked a pebble, and as they racked their brain to try and remember they watched it bounce twice before disappearing into a puddle. 

The word evaded them, stuck at the tip of their tongue, and it almost began to anger them until suddenly, it flooded back.

“Fuck- petrichor!”

“That’s it!”

Dagon broke out into a satisfied grin, and while Bee managed the smallest of smiles in response they felt that familiar itch return and increase until it was almost unbearable, memories of  _ something  _ triggered by  _ something else _ trying to push their way up through old scars.

They shook their head, unwilling to even consider it, and as quick as the thought had appeared it was gone, hidden, pushed down to be thought about later when the itch became unbearable. They took the opportunity to push their hair away from where it’d been plastered to their forehead, though the unrelenting rain simply pushed it back into place.

Home soon came into view, a second-rate beacon of warmth against the chill, and Bee was sure they would’ve sighed with relief had they not also been met with the sight of Gabriel, sodden and trying to wheel his bike in through the front door.

The itch heightened to a fever pitch, almost impossible to ignore despite their very best efforts, and they decided in that moment that it must've just been latent anger left to fester and rot, and that it most  _ certainly _ couldn’t have been anything else.

They scoffed, nudged Dagon with their elbow, and nodded in Gabriel’s direction, and Dagon leaned in a little closer to ask;

“Why the fuck doesn’t he just use the gate?”

“Idiot.” Bee hissed with a shrug and a roll of their eyes.

They cupped a hand around their mouth and yelled out, balancing on the kerb across the road before crossing. 

“I don’t think that’s gonna fit, you pillock.”

Dagon snorted and he turned, fast enough to give himself whiplash. His hair was soaked flat against his forehead, tracksuit dripping, and the glare that quickly replaced his expression of surprise was beyond satisfying. 

“Thank you, really, do you think you could  _ possibly _ be any more helpful?”

Bee stuck up their middle finger just as Gabriel did the same, and his bike fell to the pavement with a muffled, metallic thud. 

“Anything to help a neighbour in need.” They replied sarcastically, quite unwilling to stand around in the rain any longer despite being sure that all it would take for them to finally hit him would be just the tiniest bit of encouragement. 

With one last glare over their shoulder, which saw Gabriel staring after them with an expression they couldn’t quite place, Bee followed Dagon into the house and slammed the door.

Their wet clothes were hung up to dry, the fish was given its own separate tank in Dagon’s room, and through all of it, Bee almost managed to convince themselves that Gabriel was the  _ last _ thing on their mind.


	7. Choke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sorry again for the late chapter!!! im getting back into the flow of writing again after christmas, so thank you again to all who have continued to read and enjoy it! <3

The rain tapered off after a day or three, thundery downpours becoming little more than cloudy showers, but Bee’s mood only continued to get worse.

Since they met with Dagon after uni and ended up running into Gabriel, they had been able to think of little else, much to their absolute dismay. The itch to recall forgotten memories was persistent and beyond irritating, and Bee had been getting progressively more standoffish and blunt as they tried to suppress it until finally, inevitably, things came to a head. 

“God, can you just get out of the fucking way?” They had snapped at Hastur, almost wholly unprovoked and entirely unnecessary.

“Oh, fuck off, Bee.” Hastur had snapped back without hesitation, having been ready for things to kick off since Bee’s mood turned sour days prior. 

“Just because you can’t stand the fact that your old boyfriend lives next door now, doesn’t mean you can take it out on us. Come back when you’re in a better fucking mood.”

Dagon, Ligur and Crowley had not been shocked in the slightest, and all remained still and silent as Bee stormed off back into their room without another word.

They sat on the corner of the bed and raked a hand through their hair, nails sharp against their scalp as if they could pull the thoughts straight out if only they scratched hard enough. 

_ You can’t stand it. _

Bee was furious. 

_ Old boyfriend. _

The itch heightened.

_ Gabriel _ .

And just like that, they remembered. They remembered what had been bothering them for  _ days _ now, and they choked as their breath caught short in their throat. On shaky muscles they shuffled and turned until they were facing the mirror, staring blankly at their reflection. Bee cocked their head and squinted, frowning as they took in just how  _ awful _ they looked. 

Their eyes were dulled, red-rimmed, and their hair was wild and refused to lay flat. They frowned again, noticing how it made the scars on their face stand out, cheeks dotted from now-healed teenage acne; but those marks they so hated paled in comparison to the long, pinkish scar that tore across the bridge of their nose and up one cheekbone. They'd been reckless since they were a child, and had climbed one too many trees before inevitably falling out of one. 

Twelve years later the scar still remained, a permanent reminder of the fall. 

Everything was flooding back now, and it was  _ too much. _

Bee huffed and fell back, where they lay staring at the ceiling; blank, unmoving.

Gabriel.

He’d had been with them that day, had hurt his arm trying to catch them as they crashed through the branches, cried out when they hit the ground with a sickening thud, torn his shorts and gotten a cut on his knee in his rush to get back to the ground and help them, his best friend crying face down in the mud. 

Bee wondered absently, as they traced the scar across their nose with their fingertip, whether Gabriel still had a scar on his knee.

It had been raining. The branches were slippery, the mud thick, petrichor choking and all consuming.

Petrichor. Gabriel had taught them that word only hours before.

_ Petrichor. _

It had been too much for his little eight year old heart to bear and he'd burst into tears too, so panicked that Bee, through the blood and the dirt and the tears of their own had been the one to comfort him, taking his hand with the arm they could still move and leading them both home. 

Bee's mothers had almost fainted upon seeing them, and they ended up in A&E. Gabriel was insistent on going with them, sitting quiet as they were prodded and poked and seen to by doctors until it was determined that they'd been lucky to come away with nothing more than a broken arm, a few stitches and some nasty cuts and bruises. The doctors had commented on what a good friend he was, and had given him a plaster with a little bird on it for his knee.

Gabriel stayed round that night, and Bee made him promise not to tell anyone that he'd seen them cry as he and a then six year old Crowley drew patterns and shapes on Bee's brand new red cast. In return Gabriel made them promise the same, and they told each other that no one had to know as they shared what at the time felt like a very grown up handshake. 

Badass, Bee thought. That's how Gabriel had described it, his blue-violet eyes wide as he scanned the length of the gash on their face, sewn shut now into a neat little line, bruised and sealed with blue thread. 

They'd gasped and smiled at his bad language, but then frowned and brought a hand up to their cheek when a sharp pain shot through the wound. Gabriel's mother would have had a fit if she knew what he'd said, and the thought alone was enough to bring their smile back, no matter the pain.

Badass.

Bee traced the scar again, and then turned to hide their face between the pillows.

And if they cried, which they most definitely did  _ not _ , then no one had to know. 

~

Three and a half hours later Bee woke up with a jolt, having fallen into a fitful sleep after their emotions had exhausted them. They groaned and sat up, rubbing their face with both hands and cringing as they remembered exactly how they’d reached the state they were currently in.

They felt atrocious - in more ways than one - but above all else they were absolutely dying for a cigarette. They slid from the bed and stumbled over to the desk to grab their rolling tin, and then made their way just as messily out through the now-empty living room and into the garden. It was dark outside, the air piercing cold against their flushed cheeks, and as they rolled a cigarette with shaky hands they walked to sit by the tree-that-once-was and pulled their knees up close to their chest.

Bee sat in absolute silence as they lit and smoked their first cigarette, looking around at the lights in the upstairs bedrooms and listening to the emergency sirens of police cars speeding by into the night. They stared up at the sky, traced the stars from Orion, through Taurus and to the Pleiades, and then huffed and threw the end of their cigarette over the fence. 

Another was rolled and smoked just as quickly as the first, and then a third, all following suit over the garden fence, and by the fourth they felt sick, head spinning and throat stinging. Nonetheless they went to light it, in a futile attempt to burn away the fog of numbness that had settled over them, but they flinched and dropped it when something came overhead and landed on the concrete in front of them.

They cocked their head and frowned, leaning in close and using their phone torch to see what it was, only for a second to hit them on the head a moment later.

“What the fuck?” They grumbled, standing to look sharply over their shoulder, and they nearly fell flat on their ass in surprise when they saw Gabriel leaning over the fence.

“You should stop smoking so much, you know-” He scowled, throwing another of what Bee now realised to be their cigarette ends at them, watching as it landed just short of where they stood.

“-Or at least, stop throwing them over our fence when you’re done with them.”

Bee’s anger boiled over almost instantly, sending them barrelling up onto the wall and into his space, shoulders squared and brows furrowed.

“I won’t tell you again, leave me  _ alone.”  _ They hissed. “How long have you been fucking watching me?”

Gabriel looked completely unbothered, and it only served to rile Bee up more. He took a step back, putting himself out of their way, and stared down at them with a roll of his eyes.

“Long enough.” 

Bee grabbed the fence panels between them, exhaling sharply and digging their fingernails into the wood.

“You never used to smoke-” He continued, such an awful smug smile slapped across his face, and it pushed Bee over the edge.

“Why the Hell are you so obsessed with me?” They interrupted, fists clenched tight now by their sides. 

"If caring about an old friend is 'being obsessed', then I suppose I am." He shot back, and he even had the gall to look offended. 

"We are not fucking friends, Gabriel!”

"We used to be!" He argued without missing a beat.

"Until you fucked it up!" Bee retorted with just as much vigour, their voice accusatory and thick with venom.

Gabriel looked taken aback, and when Bee realised exactly how big of a hole they’d dug themselves into they almost wished for the proverbial to become real, for the ground to open up and swallow them whole.

"Oh, so this is  _ my _ fault?"

"Yes!” They shouted, incredulous, wondering why they’d even bothered to entertain him in conversation in the first place. “This is entirely  _ your _ fault! What part of 'we've grown apart, Bee, accept it' do you not remember?"

Gabriel fell silent, eyes and mouth wide, before he shrank in on himself with a frown. Bee could tell what he was thinking, as much as they hated to admit it, from the way his eyes darted around as he stared at his feet, the way his forehead creased and his shoulders dropped as he sighed.

They’d seen it before. 

_ Nothing had changed. _

Silence stretched between them for a moment, feeling like hours despite only being a matter of seconds. Then, he spoke again, voice quieter this time, dimmed and smothered by something almost recognisable as doubt. 

"You know what?"

Bee wished he’d shut the fuck up, that he’d move out, move universities, pack up every memory of his existence and take them with him, but the intrigue was simply too much to bear. 

"Oh, do tell." 

Gabriel shut his eyes and took a deep breath, and when he opened them again he was staring right into Bee’s own, his expression unreadable.

"You're right."


	8. Old Habits Die Hard-

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i found this chapter super hard to write for some reason? i hope its not too out of character or choppy - all feedback is absolutely welcomed! thank you again for reading and enjoying - i appreciate u all <3

Bee had been acting weird.

Dagon was convinced, as she watched them from the other sofa, sat silent and typing away on their phone, that it was possible they’d even been replaced by someone else in the dead of night.

She turned to look at Crowley, who was perched awkwardly on the arm of the sofa despite there being more than enough room to sit normally, and they shared a wide-eyed shrug before both went back to studying Bee with intent.

Usually they would be complaining about something, getting up for a cigarette every half an hour or drowning themselves in coffee, but since their little outburst two weeks prior they’d been almost entirely unremarkable to be around - and it was _ maddening. _

The argument was neither mentioned nor spurned, and that in itself was nothing out of the ordinary, but what had Bee so drawn to their phone was the question on everybody’s lips.

None of them dared ask, however, and for that Bee was glad, as their answer would’ve been a blatant lie.

Another message came through, and they rolled their eyes with a huff despite opening it immediately.

From: tracksuit wanker   
michael’s driving me up the wall

They pushed down their doubts, as they did every single time they messaged him, and they typed out their reply and sent it without double checking. 

To: tracksuit wanker   
kick her out then

They had been thinking an awful lot recently, and not a single one of their thoughts had been good. 

That night in the garden had ended on just as weird a note as it had started. Hearing Gabriel admit that they were right, above all else, had thrown them off guard to such a degree that when he’d practically forced his Snapchat username on them they’d taken it and added him without a second thought.

He’d disappeared after that, looking much too pleased with himself, and Bee had sat in the garden, cold and in shock, staring into space and trying to figure out how they’d allowed themselves to lose an argument with  _ him _ of all people. When the cold got too much and the cigarettes began to make them feel sick again, Bee retreated back indoors and headed straight to bed, where they laid in the dark and, again, tried to figure out what on Earth they’d been thinking letting their guard down.

He messaged them that night, and Bee immediately dismissed the notification without opening it, hoping to forget about it only for it to slap them in the face every time they opened the app. It took them three days to open it, and a further four to even begin to think about replying. The internal struggle they experienced was like no other; were they to block him out entirely and lose their opportunity for closure, or allow him back in and risk having such rare instances of vulnerability taken advantage of?

They still hated him, of course they did, with every fibre of their being.

Even as they replied to him instantly, as they pushed down and outright ignored the feeling of what they knew deep down was relief to have their best friend back, they still hated him. 

The fact that the hatred felt different now, almost natural,  _ habitual, _ is what really got to them. It was as if those four years had never happened, as if the fallout of their friendship was no more than a bad dream, and their emotions had been laid bare before them for the first time in years.

As they read his reply they tried to convince themselves that they were simply humouring him; working their way in again only to reveal it had all been a joke - to make him feel exactly how they had felt when he left. 

From: tracksuit wanker   
oh yeah, i’m sure mom would be thrilled

His accent was still as thick as it always had been - Michael's too, both of them having been born and raised spending equal time between family in the UK and the States. Bee rolled their eyes at the memory as they quickly typed out and sent a less than complimentary response.

To: tracksuit wanker   
stupid american

Dagon, who had been watching wide-eyed and alarmed as Bee went through almost every discernable facial expression in less than a minute, turned to look at Crowley, and the two shared a subtle, confused shrug.

Bee, oblivious, continued on, so lost in thought that even if Dagon or Crowley had attempted to question them, they were sure they wouldn’t have noticed.

Nothing had changed. Gabriel was still the same idiot he’d always been, just taller now, more arrogant, and it seemed that no matter how hard they tried Bee couldn’t stop themselves from falling back into the comfort of old habits. 

Allowing him back in was a slippery slope, just as it had been to cut him off, and the irony of it all was sickening. 

It began with Gabriel becoming embarrassed to be seen with them, taking them on long and convoluted detours home to avoid the other boys from school under the excuse of wanting to spend more time with them, and before long he would refuse to walk with them altogether. Soon after he deleted them from his socials, and then blocked their number, and Bee could only watch as their friendship died a quick and painful death at the hands of teenage egotism. 

They tried to talk to him about it numerous times, first being told “it’s not what it seems, I’m just busy”, and then “we’re growing up, we’re bound to see each other less”, until finally their frustrations at being ignored tipped them over the edge.

“We’ve grown apart, Bee,” had been his excuse when Bee confronted him for the last time. “-Just accept it.”

And they did. They shouted and swore and all but pushed him away, kept their anger hidden and locked away to burn, fuelling them and reminding them to never trust anybody the same way again.

In the following months Gabriel stood by as his new friends continued to target them, passive and useless as they found any excuse to make Bee’s life Hell - their hair, their pronouns, their acne,  _ anything. _

Gabriel left six months later, his whole family moving down south so that he could do his A-Levels, and Michael her GCSE’s, at a school their mother would say was “better suited to their needs.” He neglected to tell them until three days before he left, and he did so via text, which said no more than ‘we’re moving away, I'll see you around’. Bee was heartbroken, though hid it behind fury and replied with only ‘fuck you’, and they didn’t hear from him again.

They hadn’t stopped thinking about him, be it riling themselves up with made-up arguments or reliving the good times, he just wouldn’t disappear. Even after deleting all of their photos together, all of their old messages, excommunicating him and his memory entirely, something deep down still missed him, and something even deeper wondered whether he missed them too.  
  


Above all else, they hated him-

(A new message came through, and they smiled for a split second as they read it, before catching themselves and forcing the smile back into a frown.)

From: tracksuit wanker   
im really glad to have you back

\- and they always,  _ always _ would.


	9. -And Some Don't Die At All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hi!! im so sorry for such a long wait, uni happened, and then life happened, and then everything else happened - this chapter was really hard to write for some reason, but thank you so much again to everyone who is still reading and commenting, you guys are so lovely! i hope you enjoy it, hopefully i'll start getting back on track with my uploads soon <3

“It says here we’re on an amber weather warning for snow and ice-”

Bee hummed, barely listening as they stared out onto the street through blinds forced open around their finger and thumb, shrouded in a fluffy black blanket as they watched the first snow of the year coat everything in white.

“-says we might get a couple of inches!”

“I’m sure you’d love that.” Bee snorted immaturely, though remained captivated by the weather and made no effort to move.

“Oh, ha ha-” Came the voice again, and Bee wondered whether they’d be able to ignore it completely if they simply refused to turn around and face the source. “-Very mature.”

They hummed again, and watched as a very fat cat made its way disapprovingly through the snowy gardens across the road.

Silence stretched out, and Bee was almost able to forget the situation they’d gotten themselves into, until-

“Are you even listening to me?”

No, they most definitely were not, and they were trying absolutely everything in their power to continue as such.

“No, not really.” They answered with a shrug and a glance over their shoulder that they immediately,  _ immediately  _ regretted.

Gabriel was still there on their bed as he had been all day, reclined against their pillows, wearing  _ their _ dressing gown, ankles crossed and hands clasped behind his head with the most pitiful look on his face.

Bee couldn’t tell whether they wanted to punch him or-

_ What the fuck? _

They stopped their thoughts dead, and turned back to the window.

“No surprise there, then.” He spoke after a moment, smirk evident in his voice, and it almost made Bee angry.

At six o’clock that morning, fuelled by nothing more than boredom and poor impulse control, Bee had invited him round. Their initial plan was to send the message and then immediately go to sleep so that they wouldn’t have to deal with it until the afternoon, but they hadn’t accounted for Gabriel waking up at such inhuman hours for his morning workout, and so as such had been forced to deal with it then and there. 

_ From: tracksuit wanker _ _   
_ _ you’re up early! _ _   
_ _   
_ _ To: tracksuit wanker _ _   
_ _ havent slept yet _ _   
_ _   
_ _ anyway. u coming round or not _

_   
_ _ From: tracksuit wanker _ _   
_ _ i’d love to! _ _   
_ _   
_ _ To: tracksuit wanker _ _   
_ __ shut up. none of my other mates are free so ull have 2 do

At two in the afternoon he’d turned up, and despite the house being empty Bee still ushered him into their room as if smuggling contraband. They’d barely processed and accepted being civil with him again, so to have him lying about their room as if nothing had ever gone wrong was disconcerting, to say the least.

“I hate you.” They said, as if to remind themselves that it was true. 

He scoffed, amused, and Bee could hear the rustling of their duvet as he stood up, followed by the groaning of the floorboards as he wandered across the room.

Creak, creak,  _ clap _ -

His hand was on their shoulder, firm as he crouched behind them to look through the gap in the blinds, head right beside their own. He was obviously comfortable around them, slipping so faultlessly back into his habitual tactility, while all Bee could think about was how easy it would be to elbow him in the chin, shove him down while he was stunned, beat him to a pulp and taste the revenge they’d chased for years. 

And then they turned to look at him, six foot tall and crammed into a dressing gown made for someone five sizes smaller, looking absolutely ridiculous with the sleeves half way up his forearms, and their mind went blank.

_ That’s my best friend,  _ was the first thought that came back.

“Don’t touch me,” was the first sentence that left their mouth.

He didn’t make a fuss, only removed his hand with a quiet apology, and Bee wished he’d do something, anything other than be so infuriatingly easy to get along with. They wanted him to get angry, to be awful to them, to do something wrong so that they’d have an excuse to carry on hating him rather than fighting the internal realisation that they’d held such a strong grudge over a silly, childish argument.

“It’s really piling up out there, do you think we’ll get a white Christmas for once?”

“Ah, I doubt it.” Bee grumbled, withdrawing their hand to let the blinds fall back shut.

Gabriel huffed and pushed Bee out of the way, wheeling them halfway across the room despite their protests before dropping to his knees and gazing out through the blinds once again.

“Manhandle me again, I swear down-” Bee started, but Gabriel didn’t even acknowledge them, and they hissed profanities at him under their breath.

“Do your moms still live nearby?”

Bee’s anger boiled and then dissipated instantly, going from one hundred to zero the moment they caught sight of his stupid face, looking at them over his shoulder. They willed the anger back, but nothing came.

“Yeah.” They frowned. “Do your parents still live down south?”

“Yeah.” Gabriel replied, turning his gaze back to the window, and Bee was almost sure that the conversation would end there, falling into uncomfortable, prolonged silence until one of them did something awkward to break it.

“That’s one reason why I came back here for university-” He continued, though this time made no move to face them, and Bee felt a chill hit their spine like lightning. 

“-I kinda hoped I’d run into you, but I never thought it’d go like  _ this _ .”

Bee heaved in a breath, feeling like the air had been punched out of them.

_ I missed you. _

“Fuckin' stalker."

Gabriel laughed, not a forced stall of a laugh, but something genuine, and Bee stared at him with that same frown despite their mind running a mile a minute. 

“Don’t pretend like you didn’t want to see me too, Bug.” 

Hearing that nickname,  _ his _ nickname for them, for the first time in years felt like a swift kick to the chest, and was the final straw to break the camel’s back. More distressing than the nostalgia was the visceral feeling of vulnerability that came with it, the likes of which Bee had not allowed themselves to feel since he left. They spun their chair to face away from him, awkwardly studying their own noticeboard as if it was the most interesting thing in the world while pins and needles climbed from their fingertips like flies beneath their skin. Behind them came the sound of Gabriel’s breathing, no heavier nor louder than before and yet Bee could almost feel him right behind them. Their heart threatened to tear straight through their chest and flop out onto the carpet between them, and Bee thought for a second that it may as well have done, what with how exposed they already felt. 

The silence was absolutely deafening, harsh against the previous hope of reunion. 

_ I knew this was a bad fucking idea. _

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> Check me out on Tumblr or Instagram for chapter sketches and updates!  
https://epizkage.tumblr.com/  
https://www.instagram.com/p/B4ueisMBPVC/


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